“Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country”, stated President John F. Kennedy’s charge to the American People in his 1961 inaugural address. Since Kennedy’s presidency, much has changed. The United States put a man on the moon, fought the Gulf Wars, and cycled through seven more presidents; however, the importance of service and patriotism remains undiminished. It’s unfortunate then that today’s young people are lazy, entitled, and unwilling to lift a finger to help anyone but themselves—or so you’d think, if you listen to Martha Stewart.
Despite the bad rap that the youth get, recent polling by the Institute of Politics at Harvard University reveals that the majority of young people today actually support the idea of a national service program for Americans under the age of 25. The IOP survey of 18-29 year old Americans found that a full 50 percent support voluntary national service, and seven percent support mandatory national service. Only 10 percent of respondents indicated that they would not support national service at all, while 33 percent were either unsure, or did not answer.
This data reveals that many young Americans are committed to the idea of service, while another large portion may be under-informed as to what national service can look like. According to the IOP, national service is “engag[ing] in activities that would contribute to the greater good of the country,” perhaps in “the form of military service, domestic improvement programs such as AmeriCorps or City Year, or international programs such as the Peace Corps… that [may] be linked to student loan forgiveness or other relevant incentives”.
Volunteers In Service To America, founded in 1965, and renamed AmeriCorps in 1993, is likely the largest non-military manifestation of national service in the United States. Since its inception, AmeriCorps has grown tremendously, engaging 800,000 volunteers in 1 billion hours of service since 1994. Today, Americorps comprises 75,000 young Americans per year in service at 15,000 locations including “nonprofits, schools, public agencies and community and faith-based groups.” This contribution is remarkable; however it represents engagement from only a fraction of the 31 million Americans aged 18 to 24. Clearly, a vanishingly small percentage of young Americans actually choose to engage in service every year, despite interest in and approval of the concept.
This stands in sharp contrast to the robust service programs found in other parts of the world. In much of the world, national service programs attract youth to service in exchange for education, job training or as a requirement for future employment. Interestingly, service is mandatory in Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana. In Kenya, all high school graduates are expected to serve up to two years. In Nigeria and Ghana all university graduates are expected to serve for 1 year. These kinds of service programs furnish youth with marketable skills, kindle community responsibility, and engage young people in positive activity to prevent radicalization and recruitment by terrorist organizations.
It’s unlikely that mandatory national service will ever become the norm in the United States; however, the expansion and development of national service programs, coupled with a normalization of service as an acceptable post-graduate plan, are important ways to engage American youth in service. Evidently, young Americans like the idea of service – the next step is to bridge the gap between the majority of young Americans who approve of national service, and the small minority who actually engage in service.